Petersen: It's Great To Be Back

Billy is back in town.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star William Petersen (Gil Grissom) started his career in the theater. "A theater community can only exist if the people stay, if the people embrace it, commit to it and stay in it," Petersen told Chicago Amplified. "You've got to plant your seeds here and tend the garden." For that reason, Petersen has remained loyal to the theater community in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois.

Petersen recently returned to Chicago to perform Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol at Steppenwolf's Upstairs Theatre. Regarding his departure from CSI, Petersen said, "I think I've done everything that I can do with the show." After being on the air for nearly a decade, Petersen said it was time for him to move on. "I just think that it was the right thing to do," he explained. He also felt that returning to the theater was the right thing to do. "It's great to be back," he said.

Reviews of Petersen's performance in Carol have been largely positive. "Petersen's beautiful performance as the most ambivalent of men is at once filled with vitality and a certain inner resignation, and this creates the perfect tension," wrote Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss. "After his nearly decadelong run on the small screen with CSI, it is great to have this actor back on a stage, and he brings to his portrayal of a compulsively selfish and self-judging man a whole new subtlety and depth."

"Petersen is an actor of great integrity and skill who has only deepened with age," noted Chris Jones from the Chicago Tribune. Jones' review was mixed. He also wrote:

Petersen knows his way around truth and shows us plenty here. But he works in a relatively narrow comfort zone. This is a controlled performance. It is carefully nuanced. It is honest. It teeters on the brink of extensive emotional engagement. But it is insufficiently expansive and theatrical. It needs at least the empty attempt at an existential howl. Petersen should let loose a little and chase off the demons at the rear of the theater.

Barbara Vitello from the Daily Herald wrote, "Petersen's muted, inherently truthful performance is acting's equivalent of a meat-and-potatoes dinner. It's filling, unpretentious and wholly satisfying, the perfect complement to McPherson's intimate tale of a man who has no intimates." According to the Chicago Reader's Albert Williams, "Petersen's deep connection to the text and compact, economic movement perfectly convey a man whose cautious demeanor hides an endless inner struggle."

The original hour-long radio interview with Petersen can be listened to here (thanks to billypetersen.com for the link). The reviews of Dublin Carol are from the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald and the Chicago Reader.

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